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Zillow Inc. Revenue Jumps 70% in the Fourth Quarter

Zillow (NASDAQ: Z) announced its fourth-quarter results today, bringing in record quarterly revenue of $58 million while it also delivered earnings per share of $0.06. These results were well ahead of the $34 million in revenue and $0.02 in earnings per share seen in the fourth quarter of 2012.

"This was a breakaway year for Zillow in which we repeatedly delivered record revenue, traffic, and mobile usage as we significantly grew our market share as the category leader," said Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff of the fourth-quarter and full-year results.

For the full year of 2013, Zillow saw its revenue climb 69%, from $117 million to $198 million. This increase was attributable to gains seen across all of its business lines:

Business Unit

2012

2013

Change

Marketplace

$86.7

$154.2

78%

Real Estate

$75.9

$132.4

74%

Mortgages

$10.8

$21.8

102%

Display

$30.2

$44.3

44%

Source: Company investor relations.

However, the gains in revenue couldn't offset the significant increases in expenses, as Zillow ultimately reported a net loss of $12.5 million in 2013, versus a net income of $6 million in 2012. The company did note that its adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA -- which excludes share-based compensation and other expenses -- rose from $25.1 million in 2012 to $29.7 million in 2013.

The company also said it continued to grow its audience, as the average unique monthly visitors stood at 54.4 million in the fourth quarter, a 57% increase year over year. In January of this year, it recorded a greater than 50% increase over levels in January 2013, with unique visitors almost eclipsing 70 million. The company also said its Premier Agent subscribers grew by 8% in the fourth quarter, and 64% in all of 2013, to stand at 48,314.

Rascoff concluded by noting that Zillow is "looking ahead to 2014 with significant investments in growing our audience, growing our Premier Agent business and turning up the volume in mortgages and our other emerging marketplaces."

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so does the Motley Fool pay you extra to write "pump up" articles on stocks they own as soon as those stocks take a dive? since its in their best interest to have an article out there like this say "dont worry everyone" ??

then zillow went onto decrease yearly growth, in '13 they grew ~69% over '12, and in '14 they are estimating only growing 48%, but they are increasing spending, why??? because they have to do anything possible to keep that growth going and as you can see the fad is over and growth is going to come tumbling down

now you add in the Trulia is going to increase their spend and take even more market share from Zillow, which is already fighting for a small pie

that is why Zillow is desperately trying to go into other sectors like rentals because they know this is a small space and their huge growth which gave them this absurd stock price is going to stop soon and they want to do a lot more inside selling before it all comes tumbling down

thats the real take on what happened, the stock didnt move at all after those "impressive / solid" earnings as you state, everyone was waiting to see what Trulia was going to do, and no surprise the big boys dumped the stock and no one was there to pick it up, you can have all the little hedge funds put out their pump and dump price points of $110 but when the big banks like GS say you are a $75 stock thats where the market is going to drive this down to, and after Q1 results come out i imagine it going to $50 then eventually $20

so you say its a great buying opportunity, i say its a great short selling opportunity

Sending report...

After a few stints in banking and corporate finance, Patrick joined the Motley Fool as a writer covering the financial sector. He's scaled back his everyday writing a bit, but he's always happy to opine on the latest headline news surrounding Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett and all things personal finance.